In the Beginning
by DreamingByDay
Summary: The Cullens attend church, much to the dismay of the ever-brooding Edward. Bella walks home from work, only to run into unexpected danger. A fight, a misunderstanding, a trip to the emergency room...With a single phone call, lives collide, and change.


_In the Beginning…_

**Edward:**

As we walked towards the small, stereotypically white building from which screeched the awful, arrhythmic tones of a piano in desperate need of tuning, accompanied by the equally inept voice of Jessica Stanley's tone-deaf mother, I found myself wishing, not for the first time, that Carlisle had decided to skip church this week. Of course, he always said that we all had to "choose for ourselves" whether or not we wanted to go with him and Esme…He would never _force_ us into doing anything, nor would he demand our obedience. Not perfect Carlisle. But I could not stand to listen to his thoughts all night if I did not attend. I hated when he worried about me. And since the rest of us were going…well, who was I to ruin our charade of the perfect family any more than I already had?

I growled under my breath as I pushed open the lobby door with much more strength than was necessary, not even bothering to hold it open for the woman behind me. Granted, had it been Alice directly in back of me, or Esme, (or even my father or brothers, to be honest), I would have been the perfect gentleman…but I had no qualms about letting it slam right in Rosalie's flawless Barbie-doll face.

_You are so dead, kid_, I heard Emmett think sympathetically, nodding towards Rose, who was glaring daggers at me.

I shrugged and looked around moodily, my highly sensitive ears listening in vain for a silent mind, my entire body tensed, searching for the incredibly luscious scent of the one who was simultaneously the bane of my non-life and my reason for existing. People crowded the room, hurrying from the small lobby into the chapel, but they were all ordinary people – men chatting about baseball and hunting, moms sharing jokes about their slovenly husbands, conformist teenage girls dressed to the tee, nearly identical right down to their matching bleached hair and offensively loud jewelry. They all had the same flowing, expensive skirts, the same high-pitched giggles, the same polished nails, the same faintly orange skin that bore testament to their addiction to self-tanning lotion. No messy brown hair swinging free of a loose bun, no delicate, silk-over-glass skin and rosy cheeks, no full, pouting lips, no oversized sweatshirt and torn jeans, no delicious burning in the back of my throat, no deep chocolate eyes, no –

_I already told you, she's not gonna be here. She's working. _Alice ran a hand through her short hair and met my gaze.

I narrowed my eyes in return. "I wasn't looking for –"

_Right. You must have been looking for Mike Newton. My mistake._

I pointedly turned away form her, glancing around the room again, just in case. I did not even realize that I was glaring until the little baby I had been idly watching burst into tears in his mother's arms. Emmett chuckled, and I quickly looked away, shamefacedly, only to see Jasper grabbing Alice's arm, unsubtly trying to drag her into the church's main hall before she could ask me to sit on the other side of her, as I usually did.

"…no idea how it _feels_," he was saying, his lips moving so fast that those around us would not even know he was speaking. "I haven't felt this depressed since the war, Alice. It's like being on the battlefield again. Only worse now, because –"

"Jazz, will you ever shut up about the stupid war? It was like a century ago," Emmett teased, playfully elbowing Jasper in the side with a blow so hard that it would have killed a normal human being. "You sound like an aging officer in a retirement home."

"Don't worry, honey," Alice reassured Jasper, rubbing his hand in a casual, comforting way that made me inexplicably sad. "It won't be like this for that much longer." She laughed, a gentle, tinkling sound that almost made me smile for a moment. Until I realized exactly what she was laughing at.

The image that I saw in my sister's head was as clear as the now-emptying lobby in front of my open eyes. I sat on the spacious couch in our well-lit living room, a huge smile gracing my face as I whispered something, bending my head down to talk to the tiny girl curled up in my arms. I rolled my eyes and shook my head in mock annoyance as Jasper plopped down onto the couch beside me and the girl, scooting as close to us as possible. The girl laughed, then tilted her face up to look at me, paralyzing me with the beauty of her dark, sparkling eyes and porcelain skin. Eyes and skin that were all too familiar.

In the church lobby, I gasped in amazed disbelief at the still-grinning Alice, then turned my scrutiny towards the blonde-haired brother who had been _way_ too close to the girl's vulnerable flesh and the warm blood pulsing just underneath.

"Don't worry," Alice trilled, as if she were merely discussing dinner plans rather than the life of the only girl in the universe who mattered. "Jazz won't hurt her. He'll just like how happy she is."

"Yeah, well, Jasper won't get anywhere near her, no matter what you see in the future," I hissed.

That upset the rather militant Jasper; I could tell by the hostile undertone to his thoughts. "And if I want to, you think you're gonna stop me?" Our eyes met and our steely gazes locked, calling my attention once again to the slightly reddish tint of Jasper's ochre gaze. It had not been that long yet since his latest slip-up.

"I swear, if you so much as _think_ about her again –" I began, shoving Jasper hard against a folding table and scattering "Canned Food for Quileutes" pamphlets all over the floor. Not that I cared. It wasn't my fault the stupid mutts literally ate through more than their share of the federal aid set aside for them. Jasper tried to trip me, lashing his leg out faster than lightening, but I was quicker, darting around to grab a handful of his shirt, effectively pinning him down. He bared his teeth up at me, taunting me with a mental picture of himself running his cold fingers down the girl's white throat. Completely forgetting where we were, I raised my hand to strike…

"Edward Anthony Masen Cullen!" I froze, Carlisle's soft, commanding voice effectively stopping me mid-punch. I stared around the lobby, slowly registering the repercussions of what I had almost done. Although thankful that no one but my family was there to witness my display of very animalistic rage, the simple fact that my family, most especially my adopted father, had seen the monster I had very nearly become caused me to hang my head in shame. I stared at the floor, unable to meet Carlisle's clear, compassionate gaze.

"Come on, kids. Let's go to church," he said, ignoring the scene that Jasper and I had caused just moments before. _If only Edward would tell me what was bothering him…_, he thought to himself, pondering my recent mood swings and worse-than-usual temper as he led the way into the poinsettia-adorned main hall. Rosalie tossed her hair self-righteously, took Emmett's hand possessively, and flounced into the room behind him, with Alice and Jasper following, their arms locked around each other. I just stood there for a long time before finally bending down mechanically to gather up the flyers littering the ground. I looked at the brochures almost without seeing them, too fixated on the terrifying image inside Jasper's mind to spare a second thought for the advertisement's cover photo – a chubby, dark-skinned toddler clothed only in a long, somewhat tattered T-shirt bearing a picture of a wolf. Figures. The kid was probably some relative of Jacob Black's. I scowled and crumpled up the paper, turning it to mulch under my hard fist.

A soft hand on my shoulder stopped me from doing the same to every single one of the ridiculous flyers, and I turned to look up into Esme's gentle, accepting face. "Come on, son," she said warmly, as if she could in some way understand the pain, the despair, the heartbreak that was so foreign to all of them but me. "You can sit by me today." Reluctantly, I followed her into the church's assembly hall and squeezed into the pew beside the only woman I would ever really think of as my mother.

_Look at her hair. I mean, it's pouring down rain out. It's just not fair that her curls should stay that way._

_Trust the Cullens to look like supermodels every Sunday._

_Dr. Cullen should be on ER. Or Grey's Anatomy. _

_Oh, my God! Did Edward just look at me? Why's he so dressed up today? Damn, he's hot. And I bet he's got a great body underneath that jacket…_

_I don't see why they even bother coming to church. Like we don't know what they get up to afterwards. Everyone knows the kids are all together anyways. And I highly doubt they have separate rooms. Look at them! Rosalie might as well sit on his lap._

_Those are some fine women. Dr. Cullen sure knows his plastic surgery. Maybe I can get him to touch up my wife…make her more like his blonde daughter. Would you check out her chest? And the little one…legs like that should be illegal._

_Holy crap! It's the Cullens! Edward is such a...Wow. Just. Wow. Can you imagine __**him **__naked? He wouldn't disappoint at all.. Not like Tom last night…_

I groaned and rubbed my temples, as if that small action could make the voices go away. Esme looked at me with concern.

"What is it, Edward?"

I shook my head, sending my unkempt hair flying wildly all around me. "Nothing, Mom." You would think that, for one hour, people could get their minds out of the gutter, especially when they were supposed to be focusing on whatever all-knowing, benevolent, forgiving higher power Carlisle claimed existed. I knew there was a reason I hated going to church.

Finally, Forks' resident pastor, Angela Weber's father, nervously twisting his tie around his fingers, took the podium, and the audible buzz of the crowd fell silent. Not that that really mattered, due to the constant clamor inside my head.

"Good evening," he began, welcoming the congregation and allowing the choir to lead us all in a few scratchy, extremely high-pitched songs before launching into his sermon. "Seeing as the Christmas season, a time of love and hope and new opportunities, is over a month past, and we now find ourselves fast approaching February, one of the darkest, bleakest months of the year, I thought today would be a good time to switch gears and focus on the coming judgment promised by John in the Book of Revelation. Some of us may protest, may think that we do not need to hear about the punishments awaiting those who do not repent of their sins. Indeed, the thought of spending eternity writhing in flames is so frightening that most of us attempt to simply not think about it. But that is precisely why we must face the forces of Satan head-on. Only if we understand the enemy can we possibly hope to combat his influence over our lives. Of course, we live in a small town, a town of fishermen and teachers, hard-working employees and eager students. None of us assembled here today are convicts, or rapists, or murderers –"

The self-loathing that had been simmering within me all afternoon flared up within me, and this time, even Esme did not try to call me back as I abruptly rose from my seat and stalked out of the hall.

I sulked by a tree near the parking lot, my head in my hands, trying to ignore the ever-present shadow of the huge cross in front of the church. I managed to shut my ears to the sound of Pastor Weber's sermon, but thoughts of hell and eternal damnation were not so easy to push away. I yanked at my hair, not even noticing that I was ripping strands out, and slammed my fists down on the hard pavement, over and over again, in an attempt to shatter my hands. The effort was futile, as I knew it would be – in only a few short minutes, the blacktop cracked instead.

Hoping that no one was devoting their attention to my tortured behavior and furious departure, I quickly scanned the thoughts inside the building, focusing first on the most familiar minds.

_Lord God, help my son. Give him the strength to deal with the life that fate has given him…_How about the life that _you_ gave me, Carlisle? Or are you not taking any responsibility on yourself for what I am? _Thank you for giving me five healthy, wonderful children, and the most beautiful, adoring wife I could ever have asked for. I still remember seeing her, that first day, when she came into my office with that broken leg…I'd never seen such a woman in all my lifetimes…_Must he always be so sappy?

_I wonder if Carlisle will like the new garage I'm designing for us. Maybe we should put in a pool. I can just imagine Carlisle sitting out there in a lawn chair, with the sun sparkling off his bare chest…_Mom! Come on!

_Jasper doesn't even look hungry right now. I wonder what he's thinking about. Oh. He has that look in his eyes. And tonight…yeah. That's what he's thinking about. I better warn Dad – we're gonna need a new bed tomorrow._ Thank you, Alice. I really wanted to know that.

_I wish this guy would shut up. Alice really shouldn't have worn that dress today. She knows how distracting it is. Oh, well…I guess I'll just have to rip it off her, the first chance I get…_What is with everyone tonight? I thought the sermon was about hell. And torment. And how we are all demons, and damned to a nonexistence full of suffering and pain. Apparently I missed the sex part.

By the time I got to Rosalie – who was, predictably, thinking of herself, but this time of herself in very skimpy, bright pink lingerie, standing seductively in the doorway of the bedroom she shared with Emmett – and then to Emmett, whose thoughts were along the same line as his mate's, but had progressed to the point where Rosalie no longer wore her outrageous excuse for clothes, I was beginning to contemplate swimming all the way to Europe, just to get away from the approaching love fest. That, and the fact that my family's rather un-churchlike thoughts were making me feel seriously in need of a bath.

I stood up, determined to find something else to occupy my time while I waited for my family, but then the thoughts of those around my parents, brothers, and sisters caught my attention.

_…Like the casino's such a bad thing. Come on. I mean, murder is one thing, but checking out a hot waitress and drinking a beer? That's a man's fundamental right._

_Can't wait 'til I'm legal. It's so not fair that Mike and Eric have fake IDs. They don't even look twenty-one._

_Angela's dad's so out of it. Does he really think that only the Quileutes go? He should get a load of the girls who work there – he'd be down there in a heartbeat if he saw those pictures I took of that new chick last night…_

It wasn't the reaction of the males in the room that made me uproot the nearest tree. Nor was it their shameless objectification of women. It was the fact that the image in the minds of nearly every lust-filled, disgusting man in that church was the same – a picture of a dark-haired seventeen-year-old girl wearing tight, ripped jeans and a tank top, teetering in sky-high heels as she served drinks with a painted-on smile, an expression that anyone who looked into the cheerless orbs of her chocolate eyes could immediately tell was fake.

I was back in the lobby before I knew what I was doing, focused only on ripping out the hearts of every single one of those vile creatures. How dare they think of such things? How dare they think of _her _like that? How dare they come up with the awful fantasies now flashing through their minds? I shuddered as Mike Newton mentally leered at the idea of the gorgeous, precious girl writhing against a pole, then taking off her skimpy shirt and tossing it down to him. He would be the first to die. I strode across the lobby in one bound, determined to break down the thick double doors that led to the main assembly hall…

_He's such an idiot! What's his problem now?_

_Oh, well…this last song's pretty bad, anyways. And he lasted through most of it out there. At least he left all the cars intact._

_Em! Come on…Let's just go, okay? You don't even like church, anyways. Besides, you haven't seen what he's going to do._

The doors were flung wide open, and Alice stepped out, grabbing my hand and putting it around her waist as though I had been reaching for her along. "Edward!" she enthused, beaming up at me brightly before waving to the woman now manning the Quileute food drive booth. "I'm glad you came to find us. It was so sweet of you to watch the puppies while the rest of us went to church. The sermon's over now, there's just a few announcements left, so we figured we'd leave early and go see them for ourselves."

_Puppies?! Alice, come on…I think that's the last thing Edward would be watching._

_I wonder what set him off just then? Oh, that girl he wants to eat works at the casino, doesn't she? I doubt he knows what that means, though. He's so damn naïve…he probably thinks all the waitresses there wear petticoats and corsets still._

"I do not. Shut up, Emmett." I glowered at my brother, then stalked ahead, determined to ignore them all. Alice just continued babbling cheerily as she led us out of the church and down the path towards home.

**Bella:**

I quickly changed from the stupid, death-trap heels I was required to wear for work into the much-preferable pair of worn tennis shoes I had found at a thrift store a few years ago. Pulling my thin jacket tighter around me in a futile effort to thwart the rain that had, rather typically, begun to fall as soon as my shift was over, I stepped out into the windy, darkening night. I dug into my pocket for the keys to my truck, then groaned when I remembered that it had broken down on the way home from school last Friday. I had walked here…which meant that now I had to walk back. It would be at least an hour before I got home, probably two, if I counted on tripping and falling in a few ravines along the way, as was normal with me. At least I had all my homework done already.

I stumbled along the rough dirt road, not phased at all by the encroaching night. I guess I could have called Jake, if I wanted…he probably would have picked me up. But Charlie couldn't even afford a landline, much less a cell phone for me, so I would have had to go back to the Howling Wolf club to do so, and besides, I didn't much feel like listening to Jacob's friendly chatter tonight. I would much rather have time to just be alone, and think…

I shunted the memories of the overeager, pushy bar clients out of my mind – it was easier to just get through each work day by reminding myself that my father needed the extra money, and then attempt to forget about the crude behavior of the men I served, the constant discomfort I felt as they sized me up, the way my boss, Sam Ule's stepfather, would yell and slap me whenever he got too drunk while on the job…No! I would not think of any of that. It was over, done with until tomorrow after school, when I would have to face it all again. But first, there was school. More specifically, biology. Even more specifically…Edward Cullen.

I wished he didn't hate me so much. I wondered why he did. I thought of the way our eyes would meet sometimes, during lunch, and the small half-smile that he would give me during lab, when I scribbled down the answer just before he did. I remembered his strange behavior the first time I met him, when he completely refused to talk to me, and his even stranger behavior last week, when he suddenly introduced himself warmly and questioned me intently all through class, acting as though the dull story of my life with my mom and Phil were the most interesting thing he had ever heard. And then I had dropped my books, and he had picked them up for me, and wordlessly walked me to gym, grinning widely at Mike Newton's angry red face before turning and gliding away across campus, looking for all the world like a Greek god come to life. I thought of his brilliant, mystifying eyes, the way they changed from golden to caramel to onyx; I thought of his pale white skin; I thought of his long, messy hair waving around his temples and falling across his face every which way.

It was his name, or rather, his last name, that startled me out of my reverie.

"– Cullen?"

"Seriously, dude…if you're that smashed, you really should see the doctor."

"Whatever. You touch me again and I'm gonna puke all over you."

I glanced back surreptitiously, then sped up quickly when the least drunk of the three locked gazes with me. I remembered his face, and the faces of his two companions, all too well – they had been at the bar all evening, gambling and ogling the girls until they had made some racial slur about Native Americans and Sam's dad threw them out. They must have gone to the local liquor store after that, because they looked even more wasted now than they had when they left.

"Hey, look who it is!"

"Well, if it isn't little Bella. Now we're in for some real fun."

I kept walking, ignoring them and keeping my head down, hoping against hope that they would just leave me alone. I reached into my jacket pocket and took out the pepper spray that my father had given me, just in case.

"Wait, babe, not so fast. Come back! We just wanna have some fun." The three men laughed as they jogged to catch up to me, then hollered as two more friends approached from in front of me, effectively closing me in. I recognized the two newcomers – one was Mike Newton's older brother, Chris, and the other was his constant companion, Jerry, a high school dropout who was a regular at the Howling Wolf's poker tables.

"Oh, what a cutie," Jerry sneered, pushing me up against a tree trunk and ripping at my jacket. "Look at her…she's blushing. Why so shy, baby? Isn't this what you do for a living?"

"It's about time," one of the original three men said, grabbing me away from Jerry and clutching my wrist. "Where were you?"

Chris laughed raucously, then turned away from me and launched into a story about how his mother had forced them all to go to church as a family. "She acts like we're the ideal family unit or something. But she knows we all hate that idiot she married. It's not like we're the Cullens."

Jerry snorted. "They're not so ideal themselves. At least none of us keep our sluts at home to entertain us. We at least have the sense to keep it undercover."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't mind putting that Rosalie under some covers. Or on top of them."

The men chuckled.

"That's not even the worst of it," Chris continued, eager for the attention now. The men seemed to have forgotten me, though the most muscular of them still held my hand in a vice-like grip. "You should hear what Mike says about them all. They're freaks, all of them. They sit together at lunch, don't even talk to anyone else, know all the answers in class without even opening their books…Plus, you know how perfect they all look? Well, he thinks their father practices plastic surgery on them. He said he heard the boys talking about it one day, something about getting a tune-up after class."

"And Dr. Cullen hooks up all his adopted kids. Talk about weird. It's like an incestuous version of the Addams Family."

"What about their youngest? Dr. Cullen hasn't found a match for him, yet?"

"Edward? Mike says he's the strangest of them all. He thinks he's so full of himself, just because he's attractive…I guess all the girls are obsessed with him, though personally, he looks like a freak, to me. Acts like one, too. I mean, the guy's single, and he's never even dated anyone at Forks High. Mike asked him if he was gay once, just as a joke, you know, and apparently he glared at Mike, shoved him up against a locker, and growled at him. Literally. _Growled!_ And he doesn't even play sports or hang out at bars or go to La Push or anything. Just goes to school and then hides away with his little family, or drives around in his stupid Volvo. Like he's so much better than everyone else, just because he's rich and freakishly perfect-looking and –"

"That's _not_ why he's so much better than everyone else," I interrupted angrily, not even thinking about what I was doing before I spoke. "It's because he's kind, and intelligent, and actually has a brain, which most of the guys around here seem to lack. So he takes care of his family? What's wrong with that?"

Chris turned to glare at me, apparently enjoying the fact that he had riled me up. "His family of freaks? His family of fake little dolls all fixed up by Doctor Cullen? I bet he goes home every day…'Daddy, can you fix my nose? Daddy, I want my skin whiter. Daddy, can I have five hundred thousand dollars to get a new car today? Daddy, you promised –' "

Smack! Chris fell silent as I yanked out of his friend's grasp and slammed my fist into his mouth. Blood dripped from one corner, and a tooth stuck through his lip at an awkward angle.

"You little bitch!"

The next thing I knew, the five men were grabbing me, yanking my hair and pulling at my clothes, pounding me with their hands and tearing at my skin. Angry and determined, I fought back, managing a few solid blows before someone's foot collided with my stomach.

I fell to the ground, my head spinning as I smelled the fresh blood spilling from my own body. Waves of nausea flowed through me, and blackness threatened to engulf me. I could barely muster the willpower to struggle as Chris tore at my shirt, even though I knew very well what he would do to me when he finally succeeded in getting it off. Part of me did not even care anymore. Part of me wanted to just curl up, let them have their way with me, and then die in the middle of the forest. It would be easier than having to tell Charlie about this, easier than going back to school and enduring the taunts of the other students, who would undoubtedly prefer my attackers' side of the story, about the illicit nighttime escapades of the trashy new girl from Arizona. I nearly gave up…but then I thought of Edward, of all the horrible, awful things they had been saying about him…and I was back on my feet, hurling myself at the men, yanking out the pepper spray and unleashing it in Jerry's eyes, throwing the empty bottle at Chris's head before ducking away from him and kicking out at his friend, who approached from behind me. I fought with more ferocity and rage than I knew I was capable of, I kicked and punched and bit without relenting, until every muscle in my body ached from the beatings I had received, until I could no longer see due to the blood streaming into my eyes, until I somehow ended up on the ground again, drowning in a pool of my own blood, with the world whirling around me in a sea of colors and shapes I did not understand. The last thing I heard before slipping into blissful unconsciousness was a girl's shrill scream.

**Edward:**

"No! Edward, stop! Edward…Get away!" Alice grabbed her head and wavered on her feet, looking as though she were about to fall to her knees. Jasper steadied her, and to all of our astonishment she turned on him, snarling like a feral beast and pushing him away with one hand, sending him flying backwards against a tree trunk. She slammed into my chest with her other hand, and I too flew through the air, landing a few feet away from my brother. "Carlisle!"

Alice's screams brought the rest of my family running. "Alice, what is it? Is there something at home –?" Carlisle hurried to my sister's side, worried about the safety of our family.

Alice just kept repeating my name, over and over again. "Edward, no. Edward, don't. Edward, please…go…"

"What did Edward do, Alice?"

She pointed down the path into the forest at something around the bend, something only she could see. "Go…help her…" Carlisle hurried in the direction that my sister had pointed, leaving the rest of us behind with our questions. Had we been compromised yet again? Had the Quileutes broken the treaty for some unknown reason? What had Alice seen?

And then I saw it, too. My diminutive sister ran her hands through her now-wild hair as she replayed the dreadful image in her mind, transmitting it to me as though it were playing out right in front of me instead of in a clearing only a short distance away. I saw Bella, walking home from work, tired and worn out…I saw the men following her, teasing her, drunkenly assaulting her…I heard them jeering, chuckling at the older Newton kid's pathetic attempts at humor at the expense of my family, heard them mention me…And then I saw Bella, frail, weak, small, invaluable Bella, speak up as if I needed defending, as if _she_ could protect _me_…I watched her fight, I watched them throw her to the ground, I watched them kick her and hit her until she passed out from the torments…

Alice, Esme, Emmett, and Rosalie all had to hold me down in order to stop me from racing to her side. I growled and thrashed, biting their hands and clawing at their faces, but they were too strong for me, and would not let me go. "You can't, Edward. You can't," Alice kept saying, over and over, trying unsuccessfully to calm me down. "She's gonna be alright. Carlisle will save her."

"No! _I_ want to –" I yelled, struggling once more to break free.

"Do you want her to _die_?" Alice asked me, her face furious now. "Because I sure as hell don't. She's gonna be my best friend, Edward. My _best friend_!" The edge of panic in my usually calm sister's voice startled me into motionless silence, and I sat, listening as she continued explaining herself. "Think of all that blood, Edward. _Her _blood. If you go into that clearing right now, you'll eat her. And if you eat her…" She glanced towards Rosalie, who had her arm around my neck in a stranglehold, and was using her free hand to pick leaves out of her elaborately curled locks. "If you eat her, I'll be stuck with this for the rest of eternity. And I'll never, ever forgive you."

I breathed in and out slowly and nodded, knowing that Alice was right, as much as I hated to admit it. "I'm fine," I said to my family, trying to shake myself free again. "You can let me go."

They all looked to Alice, who nodded once. "He'll be fine now." She turned to regard her lover, who had clambered up into a tall pine, as if he could avoid the temptation of Bella's spilled blood by remaining above the wind that even now carried the sweet scent to all our noses. "So will you, Jazz. Come on."

"Alice is right. You should go home now. All of you." I stared in shock at Carlisle, who had suddenly reappeared. His thoughts were a mess, a jumble of conflicting worries and terrified emotions. _I've got to get her to the hospital. Fast. I can run with her, and hope none of the nurses ask questions. They rarely do. So much internal bleeding…Why was she all alone? Isn't she Chief Swan's daughter? Isabella, that's her name._

"Bella," I corrected automatically. Carlisle turned to regard me, his expression carefully guarded. _Did he…? Alice was yelling at him, telling him to leave. To go away. But he wouldn't…he couldn't…Yes, he could. He's so much stronger than her. She's just a human. But to hurt someone like that, just because…because he was angry? Because he could? Because he hates her for making him want her blood so much? Or was he actually trying to kill her? Did Alice stop him just in time?_

"I was not hurting her!" I protested furiously. How could he even think that? I would give my life for Bella…well, if I could, that is. But he didn't know that. None of them did. I hadn't told anyone how I felt about the tiny, breakable, adorably clumsy human girl, and Alice, who had known that I cared for her long before I admitted it to myself, willingly kept my secret. I glared at Carlisle, angry that he was still sitting here, fretting and blaming me for the violence inflicted on the human girl, when Bella was just a short sprint away, bleeding…hurting…in pain…because of me. "Go. Help. Her. Now!" I demanded, raising my voice and threatening Carlisle in a way I never had before. "Because if you don't, I swear to God, Carlisle, I will never stop hating you for the rest of this damned nonexistence." I turned my back on my father and dashed away through the woods, running as fast as I could towards home, away from the smell of Bella's blood and the even greater temptation to dash to her side and cradle her in my arms, to hold her close, to hunt down the evil men who had left her to die, fleeing as soon as they heard our voices in the woods, to tear their heads off…to be Bella's savior and protector, for ever and ever. I could feel the incredulous stares of my family as they watched me go, but once I had determined that Carlisle had indeed raced to save my Bella, I did not look back.

Four hours later, I paced up and down, crossing the floor of my room anxiously and holding my phone in my hand. Carlisle had taken Bella to the hospital, just as Alice had shown me…I still seethed at the images of his hands touching her in a way that I could not, at least not yet. She was in the intensive care unit now, and Carlisle had not left her side, promising that she would be alright. He knew that I could read his thoughts, so he did not even bother pretending to believe Alice's version – the correct version – of what had happened to Bella. For some reason, my violent displays of anger over the past few weeks led him to persist in the belief that I hated Bella, that I had injured her and possibly even tried to kill her. I wished that I had never told Carlisle that I was having problems resisting the scent of Bella's blood…but now, it was too late. And there was no way I could ever tell him that I felt strongly about her in other ways. I couldn't expect him to understand. I couldn't expect any of them to understand, save Alice. And she could only sympathize so much. After all, she had simply waltzed into a diner and informed Jasper that they were destined to be together forever. She had never suffered like this.

Carlisle assured me that he would take good care of Bella, thinking that I felt guilty for the crime I had not committed, and then banned me from visiting her at all. Then, as if to rub salt in an open wound, he informed me that her injuries were incredibly bad, and that with all the new problems as well as her past history of hospitalizations, it could be months before she returned to school again. Months! As if I could go a day, much less months, without seeing her beautiful eyes, her delicate skin, her flushed face, her lush lips…My dead heart seemed to ache at the very thought of it, and I slumped onto my couch, my shoulders shaking with the sobs that I would never truly be able to cry.

I had never hated anyone as much as I hated Carlisle in this moment. Not only did he not trust me, not only did he finally realize that I was the evil monster that I had always told him I was by blaming me for the one thing I would never, ever do – namely, hurt Bella Swan, not only could he sit there in the hospital room, talking to Bella, making her tea and bringing her blankets and doing puzzles with her while denying me even the right to go see her sleeping face at night...but now, he was keeping her away from me, locking her up so only he could have her. It wasn't fair. She was _mine_. Why didn't he see that?

I knew I was being unfair, but I still boiled with rage, rage that I could only direct at myself and my father. I already hated myself – I had always hated myself, ever since Carlisle turned me into this terrible, damned creature. But I thought I had gotten over my hatred of Carlisle long ago. I no longer hated him for what he had made me, though. Now, I hated him for what he was taking away from me – my Bella.

I gripped the phone in my hand and forced myself to take a deep breath. He could prevent me from seeing her, perhaps, but he could not completely deny her to me. Alice had assured me that Carlisle was checking on other patients right now, so I nervously dialed the hospital's phone number, praying that the receptionist would not recognize my voice.

"Hello?" She sounded exceptionally tired – that was a good sign.

"Hi. Miss Swan's room, please."

"Just a moment."

I waited impatiently as she transferred the call, hoping that she was not waking up Bella. Alice had told me that the poor girl would not sleep at all tonight…I wondered why. She was probably so shaken up by her near brush with death that sleep eluded her. I hoped I would not bother her. Would she be glad to hear from me? Why did she defend me out there in the woods? Could she possibly feel for me, too? What would I say to her? _Hello, Bella. This is Edward Cullen. You know, your bio partner. I just wanted to tell you sorry for what happened today. And also, that I'm a hideous vampire who is horribly in love with you. Maybe you can forgive me, someday. Maybe…Hi, Bella. This is Edward. The freak from school. You wouldn't want to marry me, would you? We can be in Vegas in an hour, if I run. See, I'm really fast, because I'm an eternally damned bloodsucker…Hello, beautiful Bella. I wish I could touch your skin and kiss your lips. Oh, right. This is Edward Cullen. See, the reason I can't go anywhere near your lips is because you would end up dead…_

"Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?" Oh, crap. She was on the phone already. Thank goodness I hadn't been speaking out loud.

"Um…Hi. Miss Swan? I mean…uh…Bella?"

"Yes?"

"Oh, sorry. This is Edward. You know. Edward Cullen. From school. Your bio partner. I…uh…um…just wanted to say…well…I heard what happened to you…my dad's your doctor now, you know…since you moved here…from Arizona…where you used to live…"

"I know where I used to live."

"Right. Er…um…are you alright?"

"Yes. It was nothing, really. Just a little accident."

"A little accident? Bella…"

"I said, I'm fine." The curt edge to her voice left no room for argument. Why didn't she want anyone to baby her? Well, she would just have to get used to being taken care of, for a change.

"Hey, um…I was wondering…I know you're in the hospital and all, but I'm having trouble with this bio homework, and I thought…Oh, wait a sec. My brothers are making…dessert. Cookies, I think. What are your favorite cookies?"

"Uh…I don't know. Well…okay, I guess I like peanut butter. With a Reese's peanut butter cup in the middle. I used to make those for my mom and her boyfriends a lot."

"Wow. You must be a good cook. What other foods do you make?"

I didn't hang up the phone until four-thirty in the morning, when she fell asleep on the other line, and I started up my computer in order to look up a recipe for peanut butter cookies. We never did get around to talking about that biology homework.


End file.
